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Sunday April 21, 2002

April 21, 2002

So much to say, so little space in which to say it in...

First of all, thanks for all of the well-wishing email. My back is a lot better than it was before I visited the chiropractor, and he gave me some things I can do at home to help it along. Which is to say, it still hurts, and it's still limiting my drawing-table and computer time. As of this writing, however, the buffer is up to 28 days. Not bad, methinks.

Now, in the spirit of pretending that my opinion on entertainment issues carries some non-zero amount of weight, a word about the movies I've had a chance to see recently:

Blade II: I think it was better than Blade, but that's not saying much. I like vampire stories that try to stay consistent, and the Blade mythos is pretty neat, but Hollywood does some pretty stupid things regardless of the property they're given. Like the UV light grenades (think time-released flashbulbs)... neat idea, but setting off a whole box of them will not send at blast of UV fire around corners, handily torching all the vampires who are hiding in the dark recesses. Nope. If you can get UV light to go around corners, you've built your corners out of event horizons, and you've probably got bigger problems than vampires on your hands.

Big Trouble: The one movie review of this I read panned it, but I loved it. The theater was mostly empty when I saw it, but the dozen or so of us in the room were laughing out loud (which means there was enough funny to overcome the absence of a good feedback effect). The best part about it was that EVERYBODY was funny. The show was not a Tim Allen thing (although Mister Allen was funny). It presented opportunities for the entire cast to make the crowd laugh, and they did a good job. Granted, the bit about airport security was a little iffy (in light of current events, blah blah blah), but it was good to laugh at airport jokes, and bomb-on-the-plane jokes, and all that stuff.

The Human Face: This was a DVD I rented through NetFlix. I know, I know, they've been spamming people. The most disturbing thing about NetFlix is that it is a successful, legitimate business which uses mass-emailings to drum up customers. But they've got a better selection of DVDs than anybody else, and the prices are good. At any rate, The Human Face is a four-part BBC series on faces narrated by (and that features on camera) John Cleese. It was wonderful. Fascinatingly interesting. Funny. Touching. All that.